Burning Stars
by Midnight Star and DragonFire
Summary: "It was what we were. Creatures of the night, of the moon and of the sooty velvet sky torn by the incandescent burning stars. Beauty and terror and love and lust and horror all rolled up together like some intoxicating cocktail that heightened your senses


b u r n i n g s t a r s  
  
by fade  
  
My lips slid over hers, slipping over the still-warm ruby liquid that had coalesced on the soft skin. Her tongue flicked out and she ran it over my lips, tasting her own blood and revelling in it. The darkness was palpable around us- I wanted to see her, watch her, be her- but we remained in darkness. It was what we were. Creatures of the night, of the moon and of the sooty velvet sky torn by the incandescent burning stars. Beauty and terror and love and lust and horror all rolled up together like some intoxicating cocktail that heightened your senses as it dulled your heart.  
  
She showed me that I didn't have to fight against it, that my darkness was just part of me and my soul would never be complete without it. Her blood tasted like cinnamon and mint-chocolate laced with arsenic- it was slow poison-heroin that I craved. Her eyes were like two fiery slashes of hate and shredded good intentions and shattered hope. Her skin was like soft satin and glowed with the life that pulsed within her. Her hair like strands of stained moonlight which floated around her face in a travesty of a halo.  
  
Faith.  
  
She was made of darkness, but it didn't dim her light. She wore life like a shimmering, glittering, everchanging cloak- it radiated from her. She was a beacon, a dark-souled seraphim who bewitched and begged with the same breath. She was the one who had emancipated me from my prison of self-doubt and guilt- I owed my life to her. I was like a moth drawn unwillingly to the mesmerising flame, my wings burned as I reached ecstasy and I would have it no other way.  
  
Faith- the girl, the escaped convict, the murderess, the woman, the slayer- looked into my eyes and made me want to deny everything I had ever known to be right just to stand close to her. To smell that sweet acid-tainted scent that was her. I was so afraid that I would lose it all once again…like I had lost Buffy…oh God; don't think about Buffy…I just didn't want to lose her. Buffy was the paragon, and Faith was the antichrist- and I wanted Faith so much that it hurt just to think about it- hurt with a hollow, hungry pang that convulsed me and threatened to rip me apart.  
  
She pushed against me; my skin tingled at the sensation of her touch as I was pinned against her and the wall. Her mouth thrust against mine with a shaky desperation, a girl's heart backed by a Slayer's will- two people duelled inside her with the resolve of demons. Her hands clutched at my sweater, the black fabric rending like sweet cotton candy under her strong grip. She traced my jaw with her finger, lowering her mouth to place blood- and-lipstick stained kisses on my chest. Her skin felt so warm under mine- I could feel, hear, smell the blood rushing through her body and desire rushed through mine- all the more because it was so wrong.  
  
The lingering taste of her blood in my mouth simply inflamed me more- but I refused my urge to change. I ran my teeth along the skin of her neck all the way down the curve of her shoulder and down her arm until the end of her finger was in my mouth. I traced circles on the flesh with my tongue and looked into her eyes as I bit down gently. She laughed and her eyes teasingly mocked me. 'Losing your bite?', she mouthed, a smile twisting her jeweldrop lips.  
  
My features twisted as I changed- and suddenly there was an overpowering lust exploding in my body. Want for warm, pulsing, flowing blood coexisting with human desire for her. The smooth whiteness of my teeth were stained as I slashed her finger and sucked on the blood as it dropped from the jagged cut. Faith's smile just widened and she threw her head back and laughed, the moonlight from the single open window coating her face like a layer of silver gilt scintilla. I pushed back against her and we collapsed on top of each other on the floor, our hips pushing against each other and her leg locked around mine.  
  
I kissed her- sucked on the crimson slash on her lips and brushed over the fragile skin of her eyelids. My breath came faster as intensified vampire desire clouded my mind. She circled my wrist with her fingers and pulled my hand to her mouth, coating my fingers in blood and saliva and dark lipstick. I jerked my hand out of her grip and clutched her torso just beneath her ribs. My fingers stretched and pushed against her skin, feeling the stony hardness of her ribs underneath the flesh as I moved up. My pale hand clutched her breast and she moaned- and all of a sudden everything came clear.  
  
The creases melted away and my fangs retracted as I released her and stumbled to my feet. "No." I whispered, even though every cell in my body was screaming for me to touch her.  
  
"That's the problem with Slayers, mate- you don't know whether to fuck 'em or eat 'em."  
  
Those were Spike's words of wisdom. Somehow they only made sense with a British accent.  
  
Those dark eyes stared at me accusingly as the gash of moist red lips twisted in disdain. She leaned on one elbow, somehow seeming superior ever from her position at my feet. "No?" She whispered back, her voice thick with mocking and hurt and disbelief. "No, Angelus?" I wanted her, I wanted her with the thirst of a man lost in the desert, I wanted her with all the force of a tidal wave that swallowed cities whole. God, I wanted her.  
  
And how much I hated the curse that had come to embody my life- the black hole that sucked up every little shard of happiness that I could possibly hope to grasp. The gypsy curse. Had I not suffered enough? No, never enough for my sins…but oh God, was there no celestial, Hollywood-inspired forgiveness that came in the form of a heavenly ray of light? - Or some torch at the end of my tortured black tunnel that facilitated redemption once I passed into it's healing glory? - Some great blue-eyed God who could take away the stabbing pain of guilt that had become part of me?  
  
I didn't care.  
  
I didn't care anymore because I would go mad if one more thought was wasted on that eventuality. I wanted to do and not think and not consider and have back that spark of human impulsiveness that tortured regret smothered. Faith was my poison- something that I wanted even though I knew it was going to kill me. You know how sometimes you can't help doing something even though you know it's bad? That's Faith- my candy-cigarette-glass of 100% alcohol slice of forbidden fruit from heaven.  
  
The difference between Faith and Buffy was that Faith loved Angelus, and Buffy loved Angel. Faith loved…loves…me for my evil, my hate, my potential, my rage against the even more hateful world that rejected her in all her dark-queen fury. Buffy loved me for my good- my regret, my guilt, my tortured past…if I had metamorphosed into a happy person Buffy wouldn't love me. That was why I loved Faith more than I ever loved her, even though I had never believed it possible. Faith let me- made me- be happy, be carefree…Faith wanted me to live. Buffy loved me for my past and Faith loved me for my future.  
  
We were the burning incandescent stars that refused to be extinguished even as we were carried on swirling seas of darkness. That was our love. Flashes in the darkness- intense, volatile, indifferent to the world which tried to throttle us with it's cold hands. We were blazes of beauty and enigma and wonder that were only so perfect because we were so brief that time could leave no miring mark on us. And we were only so bright because of the darkness that was us as we fought against it but embraced it and loved it and regretted it all at the same time.  
  
Faith would love me even without my soul. Would she? Would she? Oh God, she had to…  
  
But would I love her back?  
  
My fingers clenched at the thought of losing my love- it was the crimson glue that held me together and without it I would be nothing but a heap of inconsequential fragments of self that could never make the whole…like grains of sand refusing to form a desert…I would be nothing but broken pieces that could never be fixed together…like the children's fairy tale that I can't remember the name of that my sister once read me. But the horror faded away as I looked once more at my onyx-flame lover, my only tether to my own self…  
  
Faith was my beautiful, honey-dipped, chocolate centred destruction wrapped in iridescent plastic and tied with a red bow. I wanted her. And sooner or later, I would have her because I was not strong enough to say no. She was my armageddon and she knew it.  
  
I shook my head and kneeled down on the ground next to her, leaning close to her lips. I didn't have to say I loved her- she knew it. Her painted lips found mine and I knew that I could not resist any more.  
  
She stole my soul with her kiss. 


End file.
